TIMEBOMB/ABRUPT
                     Jamie interviews Lydia (Fall, '96)

I first heard about Unapack while I was checking out the Web site for the
Church of Euthanasia. Lydia Eccles, campaign manager for Unapack, was very
helpful when I contacted her. Not only did she answer my questions and
follow-ups in great detail, she also provided some answers to other
questions, which I have freely merged with the questions I first used. Do
not imagine even for a moment that this is an actual transcript or verbatim
dialogue; do not fool yourself into thinking that all of the questions and
answers are less than 100% honest and true.

I'd like to learn about the genesis of the Unapac (sic) idea.

It's spelled unaPACK, not PAC, because we are un- if not dis-organized.
Organizations propagandize, and we are interested in creating
anti-propaganda which is to say people thinking their own thoughts. So we
only use propaganda slogans ironically (DON'T WASTE YOUR VOTE!) or
obscurely (DARE TO BE PERKY!) The pack idea is that you naturally run where
you want to go, and the pack is only as big as the destination is
attractive. So we try to show what we think is grim about here and
attractive about there, and put it to you as a question: Are you running
with us? We also hear the nation murmuring, "Please drag me out of my
pasture..."

The Unapack idea started when the papers published the first accounts of
the content of the manifesto and the Unabomber's threats to the New York
Times in the summer of '95.. The manifesto, it became apparent, was an
attack upon the

conditions of daily life in technological-industrial society, and a call
for action to stress the system and thereby promote its collapse. Our
campaign flagship, "Top Ten Reasons to Write-In Unabomber for President"
was published by Reverend Chris Korda in the Church of Euthanasia's zine,
Snuff It, and Loompanics picked it up and published it their fall '95
catalogue supplement. We introduced our first set of bumper stickers for
the fall Boston hemp rally (DAMAGE CONTROL, JUST DO IT, FED UP WITH
PROGRESS, AND CRASH THE PARTIES) and we were off running.

At this time, of course, no suspect had been apprehended, and we expected
FC [Freedom Club, a group the Unabomber claimed to belong to] to remain
fugitive. That was an important part of the campaign...to be cheering for
these people while the FBI got more and more humiliated, not to mention
trying to elect an unknown to the presidency. We actively campaigned at the
New Hampshire primaries in February, and had lawn signs stuck in the snow
banks there along side Forbes, Buchanan, Dole. At this point we began doing
interviews and spreading the word through the press. Next we campaigned at
the Massachusetts primaries, and were involved in a big scene in front of
the Boston Public library polling place.

We were caught by surprise when they picked up Kaczynski, but he turned out
to be golden. Our webpage was already up at that point, so we fired off a
press release nationally announcing the campaign. It was like catching a
wave, and we surfed the mainstream media: Time Magazine, CNN, The
Washington Post, The New York Times, etc. Of course the mainstream media
stories were all exactly the same: Internet geeks who are into the
Unabomber.

OK, so why should we vote for the Unabomber?

Because we can't wait for a natural disaster. As in any good step program,
we begin by acknowledging that we are powerless over the development of
technology. I mean, really, have you ever voted on any of the technological
changes that you're being required to adapt yourself to? We'll ask you
instead, can you give us one good reason NOT to write-in Unabomber?

Some people would argue that a vote for the Unabomber is a "wasted" vote,
that somehow by not voting for one of the two system-approved candidates,
one is cheating oneself out of some kind of opportunity to participate. I
know how I would answer this, but how would you?

OK, let's see. To vote for the lesser of two evils is short-term strategy.
You may achieve some tactical victories, but at the cost of affecting the
long term direction of things. A vote for the Unabomber is a strategic
tactical loss. The election is a propaganda charade, the choice is false,
by continuing to affirm that we are empowered by voting we collaborate. By
attempting to disrupt the illusion of consensus we make fundamental change
once again possible. The exclusion of alternatives to a disastrous ideology
far outweighs the possible short-term benefits of Clinton beating Dole. You
may sometimes gain more power by losing an election. For example, if all
African-Americans boycotted the next election, they would then be able to
exert power in the Democratic party, having established that they have the
power of the casting vote, and holding up the threat of withholding it. As
it is the Democrats take them for granted and offer concessions to voters
on the right.

Promoting someone like the Zodiac Killer, the Unabomber, or any other
anonymous criminal as a presidential candidate is brilliant. If elected,
who serves? But now that the Unabomber's identity is "known" that is,
associated with Kaczynski then do you lose a lot from your campaign?

We have always linked ourselves to the Unabomber and the manifesto, not to
the suspect. Depending on how Kaczynski is revealed to us, our association
with him will be affected. In terms of riding the media though, the arrest
and trial gave us a link to "hard news", thus we got press coverage which
we needed to make contact with people like you. After the election we will
use the trial to continue accumulating contacts.

The campaign has been a good case study in how effectively the media
line-up directs the attention of the populace. The volume of hits on our
webpage directly reflect the presence of ANY kind of coverage of the
Unabomber.

I won't ask you any questions along the lines of, "Isn't it hypocritical to
use the Internet to disseminate an anti-technology message?" because I
fully understand why you chose the Internet as a medium: it's cheap and
global. You never would have gotten the attention from CNN and other news
organizations if you hadn't had your website up and running, right?

Right. We get asked that question all the time, as you surmised, and we
appreciate you not asking it. But we'll answer it because it's actually
pretty intriguing. The short answer is, we will use every means available
to us to reach the largest possible audience, using our resources as
effectively as possible.

News people always think that they've "caught" us on that one, that it
makes a good basis for discrediting us. In fact, that's the reason why
almost all the articles about Unabomber supporters concern activity on the
web. You don't often see articles about off-web support, which does exist
by the way.

Interestingly, when reporters ask this question they are suggesting that
while the Internet is a technological medium, television, newspapers,
radio, etc. are not. For instance, they didn't ask, "Why did the Unabomber
use technology?" when he hijacked the New York Times. Is the New York Times
a low-tech operation? Nor do they ask why we are doing interviews with
them. In industrial society you forego use of technology only at the cost
of social exile. We are dependent upon technology for social communication.
In a small-scale autonomous community we would all meet face to face to
make decision about how we want to live. Helplessness created by imposed
dependency on centralized systems is at the core of the Unapack campaign.

A major element in the coercion of the populace is the appropriation of
people's capacity to discuss, decide and control the circumstances of their
own lives, and the imposition, instead, of a centralized, top-down
propaganda system masquerading as a public forum. So what they are really
asking is, "How can you us the weapon of the oppressor against the
oppressor?" Only the weapon here is not simply a weapon, it is the power to
communicate itself. A purity requirement from the organizations that have
monopolized the power to communicate is simply a request for the silence of
beautiful losers. Noisy resisters are accused of hypocrisy, corruption.

A similar question would be, "If you're trying to undermine the political
system, why use a presidential campaign?"

We see through media. The Internet is not just a technology, it is the
convergence of all technologies into a massively powerful and fortified
ideological system, and ideology is the ultimate technology, i.e. means of
control. Media is now the live environment itself, the social architecture,
the labor colony, the leisure camp, in which we exist supervised by
benevolent anchormen, politicians, doctors, professors, scientists, lottery
agents, and when all else fails, police. (Note that the mainstream
candidates are outdoing each other in calling for increases in police power
over those beneath the net. Clinton was just endorsed by the national cops
alliance.) Although when politicians aren't busy not having sex they still
kiss babies and ride tractors, they do it solely for the photo ops that
will be distributed on mass media. We have been formed into an atomized
mass, and the individual now relates to a vast, remote and synthetic
community, a virtual community, via the media.

I guess what I don't like about the mindset of "not using the oppressor's
tools" is that it sets down a general rule for all situations, as to what's
appropriate, without regard for any particulars. So you're supposed to be
going by principles, ethics. But then I think of all the escape scenes
where those without power steal the weapons of their attackers, escape from
prison after knocking out a guard and putting on his uniform.

It seems adherence to purity, manners, ethics always give the advantage to
the one already in power. Like the theft thing, "honesty is the best
policy." When you steal from your job you're also using their "weapon"in
fact, that's part of the justification. It's the very fact that they have
set up a system in which only certain people can steal, and everyone else
must be honest. I guess what the principles things tend to ignore is the
manners maintain an imbalance of power after a "crime" has taken place.
It's like people are being convinced it's more important to be a "good"
(pure) person than to address their needs or injuries.

>Also it seems to suggest that liberation can never be an event, but only
an eternal process. And guerrilla warfare is all about breaking the rules
of engagement, stealing enemy weapons. Even pacifism , originally, wasn't a
principle, but a way of breaking the rules, right? Or self-immolation,
hunger strikes, kind of a terrorist propaganda? All having to do with
weakness attacking strength.

Given the communications imbalance, new strategies are necessary,
particularly strategies that turn power against itself or piggy-back on
existing structures. A weaker group makes good use of theft (we've had
major corporate in-kind donations of everything from billboards to copying,
and both material and symbolic assets. Unapack's "Just Undo It." sticker
takes advantage of a million dollar advertising campaign by Nike, which
originally co-opted it from the Yippies. ("Do it.") So it's a kind of
recovered trophy.

Bob Dole unveiled a brilliant new anti-drug campaign: the slogan "Just
Don't Do It." What an idiotic solution to the drug abuse "problem".

That also happens to be the slogan of Jay Critchley's (Old Glory Condoms
Corporation) Olimpdicks Gold. He is writing to Dole to thank him for his
endorsement of the Olimpdicks. You can look it up on the web. Dole of
course is rephrasing pill-junky Nancy Reagan. It's a pretty dumb slogan,
because it just sounds likes he's trying to represent repression in
general. Actually, maybe it's not so dumb. Anything presidential campaigns,
lawsuits, commodities, religions, all advertising sites can be as a
distribution vehicle for disrupting the corporate monologue that drones on
inevitably, "technology is destiny." These strategies reveal the
unnaturalness of the social environment, so that it is no longer
inevitable, but instead open to question.

Unapack is not about "technophobia". We don't think technology is a
contaminant. We object to it as the means of execution of an ideological
mission. We believe this technology is inherent in technologies, as
distinguished from tools, which people understand, make and use voluntarily
to meet desires and needs that they themselves define. Technology serves
the goal of social control and centralized power. Tools serve the needs of
autonomous individuals. Sometimes a technology can be used as a tool.
Unapack says, "Never use anything for what it's for."

This is an incredibly important point that I don't think you make often
enough, and that is often left out of debates between two blind extremes of
total surrender to technological development and total rejection of all
"technology." The rejecters often don't categorize agricultural technology
as "Technology" with a capital T because they (and all of us) associate
technological advancement with electricity and industrialization when in
fact plows, selective breeding, crop rotation and dozens of other
agricultural tools are all results of technological development: tools made
to serve an end, in this instance the end of cultural homogenization
through agriculturalism. Do you think that the invention of agricultural
technologies (and the myth of 'controlling Nature') was the beginning of
the end of human freedom? I think that tools that require large centralized
systems to be made and used create dependencies which deprive those who use
them of their autonomy. Ivan Illich writes about this in "Tools of
Conviviality". Tools that we can make, understand, use, repair empower us.
Technological systems strip us of our tools, our self-sufficiency and our
power. Our capacities are overthrown by "revolutionary products".

So you think humans and other animals could retain the use of tools, even
extremely advanced tools, without the ideologies that usually accompany
their manufacture.

Yes. The question of who uses technology also implicitly constructs the
conflict between official culture and the "underground" as a battle between
equals. But we say that the lopsided battle against Native Americans by a
superior force has never ended. We are all natives, and our attempts at
authentic culture are under continuous assault. The colonization project
continues, and the major booty the colonists now want for their trade is
human consciousness, as a means of acquiring wealth. The information age is
really the age in which the ultimate raw material, commodity, means of
production, and protection racket converge in human consciousness itself.

In the Industrial Age or the Atomic Age, money was made not only from
industry, factories, nuclear power or nuclear weapons, but also all their
byproducts and accessories. In the Information Age, why would the original
storage device for information the human mind be exempt from the clutches
of corporate America?

Exactly. You are what you think.

A final point is that the campaign is not confined to the electronic realm.
The website serves as a contact point, an introduction to the campaign for
some, and is particularly useful as an instantly available press package.
But we are distributing real bumper stickers, flyers and campaign materials
throughout the country, installing corporation-donated billboards and
subway car advertising, sending out press kits and doing interviews. Boston
Unapack is a major traffic centerhundreds have visited, talked, taken
materials. We have people campaigning and distributing campaign materials
in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California and elsewhere. Our materials
are reproducing at a geometric rate. Some supporters have been using the
money system itself as a free communications opportunity, writing Unapack
pro-Unabomber messages on bills, communicating and destroying the money at
the same time. Of course we can't condone this since it's illegal. The FBI
may be checking for fingerprints even as we speak.

What if, against all odds, the Unabomber wins?

Well of course, if elected, he will not serve. But some people still have a
problem supporting Unapack because they feel unresolved about whether they
can support the Unabomber's platform of unconditional freedom in a state of
wild nature. They worry about their vote in terms of how they are
"representing" themselves, rather than looking at the potential effect of
the situation created by Unabomber returns. What you should really ask is,
do I want to help create this situation or not? Sincerity is not required.
Unapack is a big tent. Rather than asking yourself whether you support the
Unabomber's program or every aspect of the manifesto, you should ask
yourself what would be most desirable at 8:00 pm on November 5th when the
election polls close...To hear that the vote broke down between Clinton and
Dole, or that is broke down between Clinton, dole and the Unabomber? Do you
think the predictable is preferable? If not you should write-in Unabomber.
Anyway, would it be fun voting for the others? Surely voting should be fun.

When people don't vote, are they casting a vote for the Unabomber, or just
going along with whoever wins?

I think we'll give them half credit.

To play devil's advocate ... how can you say "leave politics behind"? Isn't
this just endorsing apathy and allowing "evil" to prevail?

"Politics" means "issues". "Issues" is what the media-industrial complex
has decided can be introduced as controversies in other words the details
that we are allowed to determine once the real decisions have been made.
"Issues" prevent us from dealing with the foundations of the whole social
structure.

Would you agree or disagree that a lot of grassroots activism has forced
the media and government to start dealing with certain issues like the
environment and racism, things that were up until about forty years ago
ignored?

I would agree that the media and the government "deal" with them.

OK, but "approved" politics and issues still have a real effect on your
life. For example, if abortion were outlawed this year, surely abortions
would continue in America but countless numbers of doctors and their female
patients would be thrown in jail. Do you think it's a waste of time to
participate in activism based on these "approved" issues with the
understanding that these policies and politics may affect your life?

First of all, there is no conflict between someone casting the Unabomber
vote and continuing to work on these issues, both by voting on the lower
levels of power, and by non-electoral work. At the same time, it actually
could be more productive, in a way, if doctors were thrown in jail! Think
what that would set off! We don't denigrate other ways of trying to promote
change. There's always the good cop/bad cop dynamic. At the same time I
feel that "progressives" are in a position of retreat. All the gains of the
60's uprising are being systematically eliminated. Call it Reagan's
Revenge. I do think that electoral politics are not necessarily the most
effective way to work on these things. But are any of these issues really
about what they're about? We're asking you to disengage from a
mystification process, stop reacting, do by not doing, refuse and negate
the false legitimization of the industrial system.

So when we say leave politics behind we mean, leave the confined area of
permissible discussion to discuss the entirety of the real situation we're
in. Issues quickly and conveniently become obsolete, that is, they are
transient, while the underlying ideology persists undisturbed, so that what
you are chipping away at here springs up in different form elsewhere. We
must deal with the ideology itself, not its passing manifestations, to
actually alter the course ("when in the course...") Writing-in Unabomber
expresses a perverse desire to do just that.

Another thing we mean by "leave politics behind" is that politics is
abstraction. It preoccupies people with situations remote from them,
involves them in forming "opinions". Opinions are merely reactions to
issues placed within attention by interested parties, and are thus reactive
and entail picking from a menu of responses helpfully provided by
"experts". (The expertise system is an important part of the technological
system.)

In an opinion poll, all people who are not willing to pick from the menu of
responses are erased by being categorized as "other" or "refused to
respond". So polls also define the boundaries of possible response. They
are designed to channel people into affirming pre-selected alternatives.

There is no way around this, is there?

We could do our own polls. The presidential election is the ultimate poll.
We can only affirm the status quo. The Unabomber write-in permits us to
declare global disaster.

The conditions of our daily lives, our actual direct experience, are not
included in the concept of politics. We are allowed to consider various
policies on minimum wage, disagreements as to how to increase employment,
we are encouraged to identify our well-being with the health of the mother
of all abstractions, the economy, but God forbid that we should consider
alienated work itself. The leftist slogan is "If you think the system is
working, ask someone who isn't." Unapack replies, "If you think the system
is working, ask someone who is!" Adaptation to technological imperatives is
the main feature of our lived experience, as opposed to the abstractions we
are hypnotized with. Politics is a false category that directs our
attention away from the truths we experience daily.

We need to get back to this immediate reality, directly perceived, and to
stop watching the bouncing ball. Diversion of attention is a classic
magician's technique for creating illusion. Media shines a light and we are
in the dark. We need to ask, not, what do we think about what is being
shown to us? But instead, what is in the darkened periphery?

This is a very good way to illustrate your point about "approved" issues
and politics. We focus on drugs and abortions and crime and short-term
snake-oil "solutions". Liberals say we need to eliminate the "causes" of
the "problems" instead of "slapping Band-Aids on them" (a favorite liberal
phrase). Why not eliminate the Cause of the cause of the causes?

I feel a campaign slogan coming on! But you're right. Look at the
introduction of new technologies...Gee whiz, this will really free me up,
now I'll finally have real power, real control (I get my kicks on Route
UNIX!) (Designing new products is all about pre-empting questions.) But
what is being replaced and eliminated? What new dependency (helplessness)
is being fostered?

We need to look at new technologies not in terms of what we are told they
are meant for, but what they actually can do. And what they can do they
will do. That is, other possible uses and effects, not included in the
advertisement.

Do you agree with the idea that historically, new information technologies
are almost always used for pornography of some kind? Photos, film, video,
personal video machines, digitizing, the Internet? I don't think the
inventors and developers of these devices foresaw their use as personal
masturbation tools. Do you think that in this way, pornography can be
subversive, especially when created by individuals instead of corporations
looking to make a buck off exploitation and suffering? I definitely think
pornography, though it can be ugly, is subversive.

Pleasure is subversive. I'm Reichian, I think sexual repression keeps
people politically submissive, and that's why so much of politics revolves
around seeming unimportant sexual issues. And I think people continue to
struggle to maintain their humanity no matter what system is imposed on
them. That's why we see people trying to re-introduce gestures like
emoticons into cyberspace, or weaving baskets out of computer wire, making
planters out of old tires, making shrines out of their postage stamp lawns,
clowning around at work, reappropriating their voices in karaoke sessions,
etc.

Cyberspace includes pornography, but it's also supposedly access to
information anywhere, anyhow. Is that a burning hunger that's now finally
met? Or is it force-feeding? I never recall having heard anyone complain
about not having enough information back in the pencil age. Well, maybe
marketing researchers.

I, for one, complained regularly about not having enough of the right kind
of information. That's part of the reason I started my zines to fulfill my
own needs and expectations, to start my own information clearinghouse. The
Internet has been a great boon to me personally because of both the vast
amount of information online and the extremely simple search methods. I,
and millions of others like me, might never have heard of Unapack or the
Church of Euthanasia had the Internet not existed. I wouldn't be able to do
research using the writings of obscure ranters and freaks, because the
Louisville KY library does not carry Hakim Bey, Bob Black or Robert Carr.
Plus you have to remember that the Internet didn't really produce a lot of
new information it just took a lot of the old printed information from
nooks and crannies all over the globe and made it instantly accessible.

Well, the current technology is helping you offset some of the injuries
created by prior technologies. Meanwhile it is creating new, more damaging
ones. You need to hear these rants because they address the problems
created by technological society. And you should! While you still can. What
I meant was, I certainly never heard any one talk about wanting to spend
all their waking hours staring at screens and sucking down sodas.

Well, I don't like that part of it either. Outside of its uses within the
context of this society, I think the Internet is a diversion, a piece of
candy in this grinding world of postmodern, postindustrial information
hell. If we throw it all away and go back to wild nature, I won't miss
computers, the Internet, television, or any of that shit one bit. Neither
will future generations raised without it.

Yeah. People always forget that eliminating dependence on technologies will
not create a vacuum in our lives...We're just so immersed in them that we
can't imagine what else we might be doing, much less enjoying.

But on to the actual capacities of the system: by transferring our social
existence to cyberspace we enter a system of total surveillance, not only
in our personal lives, but in our work lives as well. And make no mistake,
there's a sweat shop in your computer, as well as a shopping computer and a
pawn shop. Cyberspace is made for an architecture of hierarchy. As our
bodies become cogs, our minds become the superhighway, conduits for the
circulation of information.

Another aspect of computer life is that on the most basic level computers
are paralyzing immobilization devices that cause you to sit still, that
keep you from acting in the world.

Very true. We can all post free speech blue ribbons until we're blue in the
face, but what are we really doing? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Correct. And many technologies are praised in terms of what they make
possible for an elite without reference to the impact they will have on
most of us. MIT graduate students are affected one way by computers,
cyberspace, and people working on the food chain gang, in another way
altogether. As artists and academics do free R&D for new systems,
commercial interests applaud at the sidelines waiting for just the most
profitable time to jump in and apply the economic harness.

Have you contacted Ted Kaczynski since his arrest? Written to him in jail,
perhaps?

We haven't written to Kaczynski, although we did get his cell number and
address. He couldn't respond, given that he is awaiting trial and to
respond would amount to an admission of guilt, and he hasn't responded to
others we know who have written to him. So I would only write if I thought
it would be good for his morale. I have actually drafted a letter, but when
I think of the position he's in, with his life at stake, being at the
center of the spectacle after his quiet, rural existence, I feel reluctant
to contribute to his stack of insane propositions. I will send him a
campaign package at some point. I would like actual interchange, which may
be possible later on.

Do you think he's the Unabomber?

It seems reasonable that he may have been involved with the Unabomber
actions given his history. But I don't assume anything, least of all that
only one person was involved. All I know is that the FBI would like us to
believe that he acted in isolation and that no Freedom Club exists. Clearly
the state has an interest in representing the bombings as springing from an
individual personality disorder rather than being an outbreak of guerrilla
tactics by revolutionaries. Notice that right wing bombings are presented
with much more political context, with a great deal of coverage of
political alienation on the extreme right, survivalists, NRA militants,
etc. This is because such coverage serves the interests of the mainstream
right in its drive to deregulate industries and starve-out social benefit
programs.

The campaign is not based on idol-worship, but on the opportunity for
disruption created by the launching of the manifesto. The media has made an
icon of the Unabomber, and we want to put it to our own use. The manifesto
is not our bible, nor Kaczynski our messenger from God. We agree with much
of the manifesto, but we also feel free to shape our own strategies and
concepts. The campaign is a great way for us to make contact with perky
people with energy and ideas, so that we can gear up for the "RETAKE THE
UNIVERSE BY THE YEAR 2000' project. To us the real achievement of the
Unabomber is in the success in penetrating the media monopoly with a call
to resist development of the technological-industrial system, and in the
sweeping away of all "issues" to focus on the fundamental conflict between
technological development and human freedom. I do think there was an
element of self-sacrifice, or kamikaze, in what he did that those who label
him a coward for not fighting on an open battlefield conveniently ignore.
(Abbie Hoffman: "It is the first duty of a revolutionary not to get
caught.") (And be careful of your family!)

It's important to remember that nowhere in the manifesto does the Unabomber
advocate violence, and he actually promised not to take any more lives if
the manifesto was publisheda promise that no other presidential candidate
would dream of makingso we think he qualifies at this point as a pacifist
(but not a passivist).

That's an excellent point you make about the presidential candidates that
none of them would ever forswear murder before they took office.

I think his violent acts were an attempt to start a brush fire within a
system that appeared to have become totally immunized to real disruption.

You know, the reason this system is immunized to disruption is because
disruption immediately becomes part of the spectacle, which sustains the
system infinitely. Riots and demonstrations make GREAT TV. Take it from me,
I work at a TV station. We would never ever show video of something tender
and sweet like a young gay couple making love by a stream, but we have
absolutely no problems showing the Bud Dwyer video over and over again in
all its different forms: lives torn apart by the system and Caught On
Video! Every violent video we've seen is the Bud Dwyer video all over
again. Rodney King. Challenger explosion. JFK assassination. Rob Lowe with
the teenage girl. It's the thrill of seeing someone else ruined, destroyed,
and torn apart for eternity on the eternal but ephemeral medium of video.
Hmm, this seems more like the introduction to an essay rather than a
question. (deep breath) This relates to the Unabomber in this way: there
was no video of his victims' deaths and no video of him mailing bombs. Just
scenes of broken plaster and charred paper, and this wild-haired man being
led from a mountain cabin to the concrete of Los Angeles. The component to
this video was an incredibly fascinating essay, published by force and
'news' in itself. As you've said, the Unabomber forced his issues into the
public spotlight in a way that nobody has done since the spectacle replaced
life itself in the American timeline. Has he become a part of the media?
Yes, in a way. He's gone from being an isolated, technology-shunning hermit
to Page One, lead story on the six o clock news, megs of space on the
Internet and the hot topic around the coffee maker in every office. Why do
you think the Unabomber wasn't presented to the people and discarded for
the next day's story, like so many other 'extremists' or 'terrorists'? Was
it because the story took place over several years? Was it because there
was a literary supplement published in the New York Times and the
Washington Post and elsewhere? Or was it because he was so violently
anti-media?

I think among other things, the story of the Unabomber is a myth of a
redeemer, a myth of a ritual sacrifice. For that reason, if they kill him,
they will set off a very powerful response, both brutally bloodthirsty and
deification. People will want to see his blood shed. I think his acts spoke
to the conscious or unconscious desire for freedom that we all feel. We see
this unconscious desire reflected in most advertising, where it is
channelled toward consumption. Example: car ads very frequently appeal to
the desire to leave civilization and roam freely. Marlboro ads are always
about autonomy and primal freedom.

To get back to my original point, the news changes, but the anchors remain
the same. The news is about the anchors, and their ability to take in the
chaos of violence and silliness while apparently being totally unaffected
by it. The message of the news is "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow"
and "be where you are"; it is reassurance that all disruption can be
assimilated and made manageable. So since the 60's opposition has been in
retreat, if not paralysis, and the sense of resignation at this point is
mind-numbing, not only among the mass of the population "shit happens" but
among the left, anarchists and punks as well. Leaving the violence aside,
the Unabomber was a role model of ambitiousness and hope. Change the course
of history? Bust open the cubicles and free the temps? It's worth a try!
Dare to be perky! Unapack wants to amplify the aftershocks from the
Unabomber's initial explosion, and to encourage others to do so. No matter
what you think of violence, it would be a crime to waste this opportunity.
We want to see DYI get offensive.

Have there been any Unapack appearances, events and pranks aside from the
ones you describe on your webpage?

Pranks? Are you kidding? An election is not a joke. A while back, we went
to the Chicago Convention. The Democrats considerately assembled 15,000
members of the press all in one highly-secured place for us. Since we had
press passes under the auspices of a media outfit we made up called
"TVTV/New News" we got inside the convention halls daily, grazed on press
buffets spread by corporations like Ameritech, (the communications
industries sponsor both Republican and Democratic party conventions), and
distributed materials directly to the editors of Reuters, Pacifica News,
UPI, etc. The Democratic Committee press release tables within the press
pavilion were a good place for our press releases (on DNC letterhead), we
did some interviews and we also littered the pavilions with barbarian
flyers and stickers. We also shot video, interviewing everyone from
homeless people to journalists about the state of the state, and in
particular documented the remarkable cynicism and emotional detachment in
the ranks of journalists.

Perhaps our definitions of 'pranks' don't quite match. To me, the
activities described above are classic pranks or scams. Pranks don't have
to be frivolous at all.

Well, those are examples of playing with authority, which is the whole
point. Our primary focus, aside from setting up independent headquarters
across the country, is on the press. We have a new press policy that we
will not agree to interviews unless the media operation agrees to include
an unmediated image.

You know, the media is very successful at calling attention to certain
movements strictly for their entertainment value and/or their use as a
facet of the spectacle, while simultaneously divulging the mediated
information of any political or social value. When stories about uprisings
in urban centers and mass killings in malls are placed in the same stream
of data as stories about new animals at the zoo or economic forecasts, they
all assume the same value, which is zero. When you see several meaningless,
stupid, time-wasting stories in the mainstream media reported alongside
stories with inspirational potential, you tend to associate all of them in
the same way. So when Hard Copy talks about Heather Locklear's breast
implants and covers Unapack on the same show, the viewing audience
considers these two wildly different subjects as one indivisible media
mass: wacky entertainment. A bimbo's tits and a subversive antipolitical
project are given the same weight in just this way. Any suggestions on how
to circumvent this major problem? Not permitting mediation of your image is
a great start.

At first we tried to attract press and then communicate through the
journalist. So we tried to seem as responsible as possible, articulate,
thoughtful. Now we will do better by playing up the silly aspect of things,
while making barely perceptible signals that are not mediated at all. The
silliness itself could be a code.

I really appreciated your "SECRET MEDIA INSTRUCTIONS." I made a copy and
had a friend post them on a bulletin board at the television station where
he works part-time. The instructions stayed up for about two weeks;
according to him, most of the reporters read them. Do you think you've
caused any members of the media to think twice about their life's work,
either with the Secret Media Instructions or with the UNAPAC project as a
whole?

Thanks for disseminating the instructions. First of all, the most important
thing about the press, and its most well-kept secret, is that despite all
the apparent glamour, it truly is an industry, and the workers there are
oppressed like any others, if not more so, because their work IS their
expression, and the "alienation" (separation from self) of their labor is
therefore direct alienation of their thoughts and beliefs. So it's very
painful, and causes detachment and "splitting" reactions for emotional
survival. Journalists who remain in the trade are more cynical than Noam
Chomsky, because they're living with the little man behind the curtain, so
the instruction probe a sensitive nerve. They were written by a very
successful journalist who was experiencing what he wrote about at a large
city weekly where he held a prestigious, salaried position.

Here's an example of a situation they contributed to. When we installed our
first billboard in downtown Boston, we caught the interest of a long-time
Boston Herald reporter who had covered previous activities I had been
involved with, and who in fact had graciously passed on to me some police
information at one point...a progressive and friendly person. She liked the
photo we sent her and got to work. She read through the webpage,
interviewed the billboard company, interviewed the FBI (they were "not
amused"), then called me. At the outset of the interview she wryly brought
up the media instructions and said, "Clearly you have someone working with
you who has experience inside the media." I replied, "Yes, well, do you
think its basically true that you lack control over your writing, and you
cannot freely write about what you find meaningful and important?" She
refused to comment, and we proceeded with a long and mutually engaging
interview, after which she interviewed Chris.

When the story failed to appear I called to get details on exactly how it
had gotten nixed. She refused to accept or return my phone calls or e-mail
messages. So she was either embarrassed, humiliated or worried that any
response she could give us could end up endangering her job. So I
definitely think that the instructions had an impact on her.

Overall, since the Unabomber attacked the media, I think covering our
campaign causes journalists to ponder their roles as troops guarding the
borders of Disney World.

Final question. If electing the Unabomber is a lost cause, why bother?

The impossible becomes inevitable.

And perkiness is an end in itself.